Vezina & Hippie Tech
I use the M-Audio Delta1010 soundcard for audio recording and multitrack audio playback but I have to say that the ALC889 audio chip on both my GA-990FXA-UD5 and GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 systems are pretty impressive when it comes to playback in all other instances. It used to be the case that a 3rd Party soundcard was essential for good quality audio but I feel that this is no longer true.
Indeed ALC 889 sounds interesting ,but something is still missing in there.Sounds better than ALC 892 or ALC 888, but the "muddy" feeling is still there...
The implementation on the mobo is also important.
Anyway when i buy a motherboard i only use the on-board sound and LAN for few days to see if they are healthy and then off with them.
Realtek gave me some issues in the past 10 years and this (along sound quality) was another reason to ignore them ,issues starting from missing sounds in some games( it can be observed even in BF BC2 which doesn t feature EAX) and finishing with static noise or other strange noises while doing specific tasks (maybe due to lack of real hardware acceleration ,driver conflicts or mobo PCB).
Of course this are my own subjective observations and some may consider differently.